In large enterprise document printing/presentation environments, various final form presentation datastream standards are used to provide for standardized, complete definition of the final form for printing or other presentation of a document file. As used herein, “final form” refers to the complete definition in the presentation document of all information to define the content of the document and the formatting for presentation to a user (e.g., printed, displayed, etc.). Some final form standards are referred to as a “datastream” in that they comprise a continuous stream of data defining a sequence of data representing a sequence of one or more sheet sides in a sequence of one or more documents.
The Advanced Function Presentation (“AFP”) architecture, such as that specified by IBM and entitled “Mixed Object Document Content Architecture” (“MO:DCA”—IBM document SC31-6802 which is hereby incorporated by reference), is exemplary of a final form presentation datastream and is often applied to high volume transaction processing printing and presentation environments.
The AFP architecture is a broad specification applicable across an industry of transaction print processing/presentation applications and enterprises. The AFP architecture family of specifications generally specifies the format of files for presentation information including the information to be presented as well as commands and directives (e.g., AFP structured fields) that define intended manner of presentation for the information content within the AFP file. In general, information in an AFP file is referred to as “components” and the file itself may often be referred to as a “document”. In AFP terminology, a “printfile” may contain one or more documents. For purposes of this presentation, the distinction is not important and thus “printfile” and “document” may be used interchangeably.
Because MO:DCA is a low level datastream that is considered “final form”, MO:DCA was not designed to be manipulated after composition to support changes that may improve the efficiency during printing. Rather, the intent of the MO:DCA design was to provide control over how pages are placed on physical media at print time. However, there are some cases where printing AFP print jobs could be improved. For instance, some high-speed production printers have limitations in the minimum form height for AFP print jobs that can be submitted to the printer. Thus, when some AFP print jobs are submitted for printing, some jobs (e.g., jobs that specify three-inch-high pages) cannot be printed on printers that require a minimum form height of five inches.
Thus, it is desirable to make changes to AFP print jobs prior to printing in order to provide more flexibility and efficiency to the printing process.